Audio-streaming giant Spotify has acquired Kinzen, an Irish media startup founded by former RT journalist Mark Little and ine Kerr, a one-time political reporter with the Irish Independent. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company has made a number of acquisitions in the last few months, and the deal is the latest in a series of acquisitions.
After a backlash over The Joe Rogan Experience, the popular podcaster was accused of spreading misinformation about COVID - 19, the acquisition is part of Spotify's efforts to address the harmful content on its platform.
Kinzen was founded in 2017 by Mark Little and ine Kerr with a mission to combat online hate speech and protect online communities from harmful content. As part of the acquisition agreement, the two co-founders will become executives at Spotify, which will maintain the Kinzen office and its staff of 22 people as an internal unit based in Dublin.
Little said in a statement that Dublin is increasingly becoming the online safety hub of the world.
The Dublin-based startup has been working with Spotify since 2020 and is not surprised by the news of the acquisition. Kinzen's focus was initially on the integrity of election-related content around the world. Since then, the company has expanded to include misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech.
Sarah Hoyle, Spotify's head of trust and safety, said in a statement that Kinzen provides a combination of tools and expertise to help us understand the content on our platform and emerging abuse trends. With billions of dollars in war chest, Spotify is trying to expand beyond music streaming services through acquisitions and massive investments. In June, the streaming giant announced that it will reach $100 billion in annual revenue, nearly 10 fold from its 2021 revenue of $11.4 billion.
The music-streaming behemoth has seen a lot of growth in revenue and customer base in the past few years.
Spotify was founded in Stockholm, Sweden in October 2008 as a commercial music streaming service that provides restricted digital content from a variety of record labels and artists. A freemium service is provided by the company; basic features are free with advertisements or limitations.